There's no place like home...

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!

What a perfect weekend.  Time to kick back on Friday night with my husband, time for myself (blogging, walking, reading), time with my daughter (shoe shopping!), time with very dear friends (art museums, dinner, wine and lots of talking), and on Sunday, time with my amazing children.  I think our family has felt a little vulnerable following my brother-in-law's serious illness and everyone came home on Sunday to gather together.  Of course I wanted to make everyone's favorite dish, so we had cranberry pork roast, mashed potatoes, broccoli/cheese casserole, coleslaw, mandarin orange cookie salad, iced tea, and for dessert...apple dumplings with ice cream.  I let my daughter down, though, since I only made stove top macaroni and cheese instead of baked mac 'n cheese! Sorry, Caitlin!  It felt so very, very good to have all seven of us around the table again.  A big thank you to Caitlin and Matthew for driving up from college to spend the day with us, and an equally big thank you to my son Michael and my daughter-in-law Gena for driving over from their home. 

When I was thinking about today's post, this old song popped into my bed.  It was a favorite of Abraham Lincoln's, but it was banned from being played in the Union Army, as it made the soldiers homesick.  If you listen very carefully to the end credits of Wizard of Oz, you will hear this melody interwoven with Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  And while the lyrics may sound old fashioned and a little syrupy in this more pragmatic age, I would have to agree that there really is no place like home!

Home, Sweet Home 

John Howard Payne

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly, that come at my call --
Give me them -- and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild,
And feel that my mother now thinks of her child,
As she looks on that moon from our own cottage door
Thro' the woodbine, whose fragrance shall cheer me no more.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight mid new pleasures to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!